Friday, September 12, 2008

Hailey's Hysterics

Last night was a bad night.

The kids went to bed around 9:30 and at 11:00 Cody and I were sitting on the couch watching TV when Hailey started screaming bloody murder. Cody ran in to see what happened, assuming she had a bad dream. She was absolutely hysterical. Normally they will calm down from a bad dream in a minute or so, but she cried and cried and it only got worse. Nothing would calm her down, absolutely nothing!

Around midnight she and I laid down on the couch and I turned on Finding Nemo, and that seemed to calm her a little bit. She kept saying "I'm so tired. I want my bed." The poor baby couldn't keep her eyes open. Finally I laid her in bed and sent Cody to bed as well. She fell right asleep so I crawled into bed but I was so on edge and couldn't fall asleep. It woulnd't have mattered because within a few minutes she was screaming again.

By this time Ethan and Lauren were awake too. Lauren started crying because she was scared of her crazy sister in the next room. Oh what a circus it was! So I finally got Hailey calmed down again and I sent Cody back to bed. Within a few minutes the exact same thing happened. It was a nightmare! Cody gave Hailey a blessing, but he had to yell the words over her screaming and thrashing. I was in tears by this point because I couldn't calm my little girl and it was breaking my heart!

I was about to get dressed to take her to the ER because I knew something was wrong. But she finally calmed back down again, and this time Cody sent ME back to bed and he took Hailey duty. Ethan and Lauren both got in bed with me and Cody took over Ethan's bed. It was a real team effort! The whole episode lasted a few hours and we were beat this morning, to say the least.

I got Hailey into the doctor at 11:00 a.m. and turns out she has a massive ear infection in the left ear. The doctor said her ear drum looks very swollen and it has shifted position. He said it looked so bad that even HE would be screaming in pain. He also said the fraction of an inch that it moved would cause excrutaiting pain. My poor baby! I feel so sorry for her. But she got on an antibiotic and crashed on the bed, so hopefully this will be a better night for all of us. Luckily it is Friday and I have Cody to help me tomorrow just in case we have another bad night.

Oh my gosh, that is horrible. Good thing you took her in. Poor things. Good thing she had a blessing to ease the pain for a while. And I had to chuckle a tiny bit the way you worded that Cody had to scream while giving the blessing...I can just imagine how loud he was talking. Don't you just love those moments?